


Ice Age

by Aerest



Series: To Everything There Is A Season [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 22:27:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19755010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerest/pseuds/Aerest
Summary: Part 2: WinterThe sky was grey, and thick fog lay in the air, as if dawn would never come again. Tree silhouettes grew out of nothingness, and no bird was to be heard but the occasional crow. Long rainfalls had transformed the graveyard's meadows into a muddy mess, where the color brown soon outnumbered any green spots. By now the ground was frozen, nature slept or was dead, and all attendants of the funeral had to watch their steps to not slip on patches of ice. Thick coats and hats, worn over formal dresses and pantsuits, broke up the formality of the occasion's color and dress code. The visitors' breaths turned into clouds in the crisp air, marking a visible difference between them and the person in the coffin, being lowered into a hole in the ground.





	Ice Age

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Foul language, suicidal thoughts & behavior, despair - this is no happy story.  
> (Next part will be more uplifting.)
> 
> Thank you for your patience if you're still subscribed to "Rain at Times". Writing this took me long, deciding to publish even longer.
> 
> A shoutout to CTippy, my amazing beta.  
> Thank you to Awenar for her feedback and encouragement. 
> 
> All mistakes are mine. I'm no native.

The sky was grey, and thick fog lay in the air, as if dawn would never come again. Tree silhouettes grew out of nothingness, and no bird was to be heard but the occasional crow. Long rainfalls had transformed the graveyard's meadows into a muddy mess, where the color brown soon outnumbered any green spots. By now the ground was frozen, nature slept or was dead, and all attendants of the funeral had to watch their steps to not slip on patches of ice. Thick coats and hats, worn over formal dresses and pantsuits, broke up the formality of the occasion's color and dress code. The visitors' breaths turned into clouds in the crisp air, marking a visible difference between them and the person in the coffin, being lowered into a hole in the ground.

Brienne was trembling. It had started when she got the call, and stuck. The tremor as well as the tears. Endless amounts of tears. A never ending well, running through her, leaving her feeling drained. Drowned. Dead.  
Standing in the cold, being the only person not wrapped into several layers of clothes, didn't matter. Her skin was numb to any sensation from the outside. It was her inside that was freezing, causing the trembling. Ice so cold it had to melt as soon as it touched the outside.  
Hence the cold sweat, drenching her clothes from below before the frost could even touch it. Hence the tears, filling her bloodshot eyes, freezing on their way down her blotchy, swollen face.

She was a robot. A wet, trembling, swollen robot. Following the order of necessities step by step. Filling the papers. Organizing the events. Nodding her head or shaking it, rarely speaking, with a voice that was barely more than a broken whisper.

He was gone, and would never return. Her strength, her pillar. The last living member of her family. The one person with whom she could truly be herself. He never judged, he never laughed. He had always been there to listen, to comfort, to encourage her. And now she could hear clumps of frozen earth hitting the lid of his coffin, taking away her last, desperate hope that it'd open after all, releasing her miraculously living father.

Brienne had always been a loner, because of her looks, because of her idealism and high standards.  
Now, for the first time, she felt truly alone.

* * *

The cold hit him like a shock. Temperatures had dropped several degrees, and the cold winter had become freezing over night. It was still dark, and would stay that way for another handful of hours.  
Jaime didn't sleep well. Hadn't, for the last couple of weeks. Caught between nightmares and gloom, he had given up on night sleep and come to spend his nights differently.  
New habits, new rituals.  
He shifted his weight to his left foot and let his right slide over the ground testingly. The earth sparkled in the street lamp's light, but it wasn't exactly slippery. It would be ok. He needed this.  
Relieved, he released the breath he had been holding. White fumes escaped from his lips.

Amused by himself, he tried to create several shapes - an old game he had used to play with his little brother when they had still been kids. Who could create the bigger cloud, the longer one, one looking like a horse, a cloud ring, ... He still sucked at this game. And would rather not think of his brother.  
If there ever had been happier times, they were long gone.  
With a frown, he limped to the car, opened the door and clumsily lowered himself onto the driver's seat.

* * *

The house smelled like her father, but the laughter in the dining room wasn't his. Several hours of cake and alcohol had lifted the funeral tea's spirits, and the silent murmurs from the beginning had become a party of neighbors and former work partners exchanging anecdotes about her father, remembering the good old times, discussing politics and celebrities' hairstyles.

Brienne couldn't stand it anymore. Sitting at the head of the table, formerly her father's place, pretending to be listening, pretending to be a good host, pretending to be, when she clearly wasn't.  
She had spent the last few rounds of toasts staring into the same empty glass of water in front of her, while the alcohol-fueled voices of the mourners grew louder and louder, grasping at her icy shell of solitude with long tendrils.

The tears were gone, sunken into the ground alongside her father, buried under ice and soil. They had been replaced by roaring silence, claiming her head and heart.

The guests' noise peaked and ebbed.

She had difficulties hiding her relief when she finally listened to the last teary-eyed condolence, endured the last well-meaning hug, and closed the door after the last drunk acquaintance.

Alone at last, the silence smothered her like a blanket.

Trembling she started wandering the house, staring at the family photographs on the walls, smelling her father's dirty laundry, hugging his pillow, fitting herself into three of his old woolen pullovers without feeling any warmer.

She finally retreated to the bathroom, locking the door behind her with shaking fingers.

Sitting on the toilet's closed lid, her head buried between her knees, Brienne felt the bathroom's walls, the ceiling, the whole house, even the clouded sky collapse onto her. She couldn't breathe anymore. The world was closing in on her. Her trembling grew to a tremor, she was drowning in her lost tears, freezing in the ice that covered her.

* * *

Jaime kicked down his car's gas pedal and felt it steadily gain speed. He could still feel the by now familiar pain in his right ankle. He gritted his teeth in frustration. For weeks he had been kept from moving, training, releasing any of the energy in him. Training until he felt like vomiting usually was his go-to method to let off steam and invite endorphin to ease his misery at least temporarily. With a sprained wrist and a ligament rupture this had been impossible for him.

He had spent his nights and weekends on the sofa, playing video games, until he felt ready to implode from pent-up energy. As soon as his left hand was ok enough he had tried to find relief in real racing, in real cars, in the real world. The need for total concentration, having to focus on nothing else but the street. The adrenaline that rushed through him whenever he discovered another car on the highway and was forced to quickly react. The feeling of the swaying car, the rushing of the wind, trying to grasp him with its icy fingers through the widely opened windows. It was pure adrenaline; it was frenzy. His own kind of addiction, and so much more exciting than his siblings' love for wine.

With Myrcella out of his reach, Jaime had lost the one person he had needed to pretend for. Pretend to live, pretend to love, pretend to be happy. He was living, yes. But he kept wondering why.

* * *

Her head was throbbing. She lay on the bathroom's tiled floor. Her body still trembling uncontrollably.  
Slowly Brienne heaved herself up, unlocked the door, walked through the hallway, entered her father's bedroom, closed the door behind her and curled up under his blankets.

Sleep. She would have loved to sleep. Hear nothing. Smell nothing. Feel nothing.  
But sleep didn't come.

Instead Brienne stared at the ceiling, noticing the irregularities of the surface and remembering the stories she and her father used to weave around these landscapes and faces, until she couldn't bear it anymore.

She needed to get out.

She tidied the bed, cleaned kitchen and dining room, did the dishes, watered the flowers, turned off the heating, emptied the trash bins, retrieved a clump of hair from his hairbrush and put it into her pocket, grabbed her bags, put them down and took a photograph from her father's and her last holidays together from the wall, packed it carefully, grabbed her bags again, put off the lights, closed the door and made sure to lock it twice.

Sitting in her car, the windows blind from frost, surrounded by her own belongings and smells, she felt able to breathe for the first time that day.

Taking another big breath, she started her car's engine.

* * *

With a loud beep the orange light started blinking, notifying him of the car's need for fuel.  
"Fuck you!" Jaime answered with more annoyance than outrage, removed his hand from the steering wheel and checked whether he had taken his wallet. His foot still on the accelerator pedal, the car raced towards the median strip. Adrenaline rushed through him. He jerked the wheel around at the very last moment. The car swayed, then it followed the curve.

Laughter shook him. Oh the goddamn irony! How could he feel so fucking tired of life, while still having all his impulses cling to it?  
He needed the adrenaline, yes. But each night also was a gamble with his life, and he knew it.

Still laughing he slowed down and took the next exit. He knew a gas station not far from there. And despite his current inability to live, he had at least found his wallet in his pocket.

Wearing the same pants for several days had finally proven to be useful.

* * *

It took her a moment to notice that she couldn't see anything. Driving on, the car's windows still covered with frost, was no sensible decision. But as soon as she thought about coming to a halt again, turning off the car's engine, getting out of it while still being on her father's property, having to face his absence again, she felt her ribcage constrict violently, leaving her out of air. Instead she put the heating on full power, turned the wiper on and drove at walking pace. She tried to concentrate on her breathing. She was too old to believe in magical tasks anymore, in miracles: "Breathe properly 3 x 3 times, every 3 miles, and your father will come alive again!", but her adult self knew that her body needed the air.

Her adult self, who had just lost her father.

She stepped on the brake, somehow thought to push the hazard button, before her trembling grew into a tremor again. She wailed out in pain, and the car's walls seemed to echo that sound. It was bouncing through her head, becoming louder and louder, growing in intensity, until everything was silent.

* * *

Jaime leaned left to spit the chocolate out of the window, fumbling on the passenger seat to let the remnants of the chocolate bar follow suit. The obtrusive sweetness tasted stale in his mouth. At the gas station it had looked alluring to him, a surprising sensation, but the reality was that he hadn't enjoyed eating for quite some while.

Tyrion had called him out on that. On that, and many other things.

"You need help, Jaime! Professional help!"  
Fuck him!  
What right did he have to meddle with his life, to challenge his decisions?  
As long as he was functioning in his professional life, not endangering their family's business, it was none of Tyrion's concern.  
And function he did.  
Nothing less, nothing more.

Fuck life.

Jaime impulsively turned left, not taking the way back to the highway, but a smaller road, leading south. He wouldn't return home yet. Whatever "home" meant, with Tommen gone, Myrcella out of his reach, and Cersei - he didn't want to think of her, either.

He floored the gas pedal forcefully.

* * *

The windows were clear when Brienne gained back consciousness, and with furrowed brows she realized she had apparently been driving across a field, not on the street.  
She needed to concentrate. To focus.

She turned on the radio, but the music became white noise immediately. She put it to full volume nonetheless. Everything that kept her there, in the present, was helpful.

It was madness to drive on. But she had to. Her place, her work, her everyday life would be helpful. Even if she was alone.

Alone. Alone. Alone.

She was back on the street, crossed the bridge from Tarth to the main land, turned north to King's Landing.

Alone. Alone. Alone.  
The words still echoed in her head.

It was cold, she felt so cold. She was still trembling, even with the car's heating system on, even if still wearing her father's - her father's - her father's -

She hit the brake. The ground was frozen, the car's wheels found no grip. It slid in a circle until it finally came to a halt. Brienne tried to breathe, fought to not black out again, while struggling her way out of her father's pullovers.  
She pushed open the door, jumped out, hurled the pullovers into the darkness and then turned, rested her hands on the car's roof, buried her head between her arms and started crying.

* * *

He raced down the empty street. The wind's beat, lashing at the car's opened windows, started to hurt in his head. His fingers felt frozen on the steering wheel, his ears were sending painful flashes through his system, his eyes watered.  
He felt himself.  
He felt alive.

With a grim smile he pushed the car to maximum speed. Then he saw the light.

It took him a moment to understand what the light he was seeing in front of him meant.  
It took him another moment to react.  
When he hit the brake with full power, he felt something in his ankle snap again.

His car turned, still with too much speed, skidding towards the light on the slippery street.  
Fire burned through his leg, while he tried to keep his foot on the brake.

A car, a woman, looking up -

Last thing Jaime saw were the eyes of the woman.

The woman whose name he still didn't know.

A faded memory of warmth flooded through him.

Then they crashed. 


End file.
